


Ballet Shoes and Thestrals

by goldblood



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 07:01:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2379185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldblood/pseuds/goldblood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are two shoes strung on the branch in front of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ballet Shoes and Thestrals

**Author's Note:**

> If you're able to, I'd recommend reading this to the song "Forbidden Friendship" from the How To Train Your Dragon score (all credit to John Powell, of course, the mastermind behind the music to that film!)  
> The one I listened to while writing this is 4:11 minutes long c: It's a magical song, so prettyyyy //sobs because she couldn't compose a song for the life of her
> 
> sorry this story is so weird... blame my strong procrastination skills c;

There are two shoes strung on the branch in front of him. 

One of them is badly stained and slightly torn, and a crust of mud is forming around the toes; the other has apparently fallen so deeply into disrepair that the owner has attempted to patch it back together with misshapen squares of blue felt.  
They were probably quite expensive shoes, once upon a time; they're ballet shoes, woven in a silvery, shell-pink satin, fraying and fading with age and overuse. 

Using his palms to press the sting of tears away from his eyes, he stares at the shoes a little more, his eyebrows lowering into a contemplative frown and his lips puckering. The Forbidden Forest is not the sort of place you walk around barefoot in. Someone's going to miss these shoes - particularly when there's a small green nymph sinking its teeth into their ankle or there's a gnome hacking at their toes with a miniature pick-axe, screeching profanities and magical slurs.

He's conflicted for a moment, torn between looking for the shoes' enigmatic owner or leaving them behind and forgetting about them. On the one hand, he's had quite enough human interaction for today: had enough of the pitying looks and the sympathetic shoulder pats, the murmurs of "it'll be okay" when it quite obviously won't be. On the other hand, it's probably a girl who owns these shoes and, being a Gryffindor, there's a small, chivalrous part of him nudging his conscience out of its grief-addled state. No girl wants to have one less toe, at the end of the day.

A light breeze twines itself through the trees, lifting the loose strands of ginger hair from his forehead and ruffling them. Making a small noise of irritation at the back of his throat - partially at himself and his inability to silence his conscience, and partially aimed at the ditsy-brained girl who's prancing around with no shoes on - he reaches out to grab the shoes, untangling the tattered seams of ribbon from the tree branch and cradling the footwear carefully, worried they'll fall apart in his hands. They're surprisingly sturdy, though - a small miracle, given their battered appearance - and there's something almost otherworldly about their sewn patches and split seams and lush grass stains, if you look past the clashing colours and tattered fabric and the whole absurdity of not buying a new pair. They're the sort of shoes you'd imagine fairies wearing. 

He's lost for a few moments, studying the shoes so intently that he's startled when something brushes past his leg; almost like a cat, pressing its head against his knee, the skeletal ridge of its spine skimming against his calf. 

He glances down, shocked, but whatever was there is gone. 

He looks back up again, his heart pulsing a ragged, erratic rhythm in his chest, the eerie magic of the ballet shoes temporarily forgotten.

A small, ebony-coloured waif-like creature stands a little way ahead; it balances precariously on four black legs that could pass for charred twigs, depthless onyx eyes blinking at him from the voids of a gaunt skull. His heart speed increases, and he's tempted to back away now, run in the opposite direction, run back to somewhere where it doesn't feel like there's a chorus of ethereal whispers harmonizing in the wind. 

A joyous peal of girl's laughter disrupts the intense connection between him and the creature as they stare at one another, bloodshot brown eyes on pearly black ones. 

It turns its head towards the sound, the inky-black muscles of its neck contorting. It glances back at him one more time, head tilted, the fine hairs of its mane dancing slowly through the air as though it were deep underwater. It takes a single, wobbly step in the direction of the girl's laughter, and then it's careening forwards, lurching about, tossing its head and scampering at a reckless pace that seems much too fast for an animal that looks as delicate as porcelain. 

He's running after it though, for reasons unknown and unplanned, an unconscious and automatic reaction. His feet are flying over the uneven ground, stumbling over twigs and branches and tripping over snares of ivy, dodging the circles of frail, waxy-petalled flowers, sprawling over a moss-coated log of gargantuan proportions; more skeletal creatures join them, floundering wildly, some of them rolling around on their backs or nursing young ones, nudging them onto their legs with a mother's gentle patience. 

The world passes George Weasley in a hectic, multicoloured blur of life and loss; and he's alive, his heart pounding and his cheeks flushed and his hair pricking his eyes and the rolled-up legs of his jeans unfurling with each step, and up ahead there's a bright clearing flooded with sunlight, so blindingly white that he slows, his eyes pressing shut against the harshness of the glow -

The clearing is filled with the strange horse-like creatures; they're not black in this light, but like the feathers of a magpie, they glint all sorts of colours - mostly hues of emerald and sapphire, but occasionally there's a flash of violent and plum and saffron and gold. They linger in the shadowy corners of the clearing, but a few have cautiously strayed to the center, unsteady and uncertain. They blink up at him, long eyelashes feathering their cheekbones, and then return their attention to the girl who sits in the middle of the clearing, a golden halo of straggly blonde hair coursing down her back and around her shoulders. The satin of her multiple skirts spill out around her like liquid, a glossy pool of pearly fabric - though in a few places, he notes, there are a few patches of strange felt shapes. 

She turns to glance over one shoulder; takes in his sweaty, bedraggled appearance, her shoes knotted around his neck, half-dried tears on flushed, freckled cheeks. 

She doesn't ask why he isn't at his twin brother's funeral, like his other family members; doesn't ask why, despite the distant fanfare of Chopin, he isn't watching his brother's body as it is laid to rest along with the others from Gryffindor who died fighting just over four months ago. 

She smiles at him. 

"They're sweet, aren't they?" 

Sweet isn't quite the word he'd use, but rather than protest, he smiles back: because while they're not sweet, they're almost celestial, ghostly, otherworldly creatures that don't belong on the mortal plane. He doesn't feel so alone anymore, not as the tiny, skeletal Thestral from before rubs its head against his leg and glances up at him with large, round eyes, not now there's a girl who's not asking questions or frowning at him questioningly. He can see his own face in the reflection of the Thestral's eyes and for once, it doesn't look like the reflection of someone else; it's just him, George Weasley, but it's not George Weasley without his other half. It's George Weasley and he's in a forest with a miniature horse that closely resembles the fractured bones of a burnt-out bonfire, and he's smiling. 

Maybe, now that - some two-thousand yards in the opposite direction - his brother is resting in peace, he can rest in peace, too.


End file.
